


Twitterpated

by ArwenLalaith



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fans & Fandom, Ethan is still alive, F/F, Meta, Social Media
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29848932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLalaith/pseuds/ArwenLalaith
Summary: Here are three facts about Jennifer Jareau:1. JJ is Emily Prentiss' - worldwide YouTube sensation - biggest fan.2. Her favourite pasttime is stoking the flames of Emily's feud with famous author A.E. Blake.3. Her world is about to be turned on its head by one Ethan Miller.
Relationships: Alex Blake/Emily Prentiss, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Beth Clemmons
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic is inspired by a very well-known SwanQueen fic called "SwanQueen? Wig!"
> 
> It's definitely kind of crack-ish and at least a little OOC and very meta, BUT it IS fun and that's the point. Please don't judge me.

[ ](https://ibb.co/cvD6FP3)

JJ likes kids – really, she does. If she didn't she was definitely in the wrong line of work, as a children's soccer coach. Technically speaking, it's really not what she wants to do with the rest of her life, but it's paying her way through college, so she's not about to complain.

The new kid – Ethan – is her first clue, though she doesn't realize it immediately. He's got an Em.V.P. shirt on under his pinny. Which isn't exactly groundbreaking because kids his age love Em.V.P. almost as much as JJ and her fandom of twenty-somethings do.

The shirt says, “Why would a spider want to be born _in a banana_!?” in big block letters from the time Emily watched viral videos and live-streamed her reactions in real time. It's one of JJ's favourite videos. Part of her wants to take a picture of the kid's shirt and send it to Garcia because even if Alexandria isn't exactly a small town, it's small enough that fandom interactions are few and far between – but she's not sure it's entirely appropriate for strange women to be taking pictures of young children they aren't related to.

She settles for giving him a secret smile – a _we're kind of in the same fandom except yours is probably a little less gay_ look. It's not exactly something to write home about, until they break for water at the end of practice and she notices the kid drinking from a very familiar water bottle...

Here are six facts about JJ:

1\. In theory, only in Virginia until she graduates, but her bank account says otherwise.

2\. Kind of a big deal on stan Twitter, namely Em.V.P. Twitter, namely the hashtag-EmVPeeps, Emily Prentiss' following.

3\. Known as Jennifer Jareau in real life, but jjfromth3block where it matters.

4\. Has seen very single Em.V.P. video, stream, Telescope, Vine, and production multiple times.

5\. Can immediately recognize any prop used in an Em.V.P. video.

6\. Even a random water bottle Emily had used months ago, in a video where she'd been talking to a little boy off-screen.

“That water bottle,” she says to the kid before she knows she's going to say it. She watches his eyebrows leap up on his forehead. “It's cool.”

He shrugs like it's not a big deal, even though JJ knows it's a _really freaking big deal_. “My...friend gave it to me.” He says pauses when he says friend like he has to invent the word in the English language and alarm bells are going off in JJ's head. There's _no fucking way_ he could have possibly meant Emily, but what other explanation is there? It's the _same_ water bottle – dinged in all the same places, black cat heads patterned on it, and the name SERGIO written on it (after Emily's cat) in Sharpie.

JJ can feel herself staring at him, trying to find the words to ask a very weird and forward question that she _needs_ to know the answer to, when a voice calls his name from the other side of the chain-link fence around the field.

The kid turns towards the voice and flashes a great big smile at the attractive woman leaning against a luxury car. “Coming, Mom!” he calls back. JJ recognizes the woman – she sees her sometimes at the cafe where she goes to work on her homework where the woman sits in a corner and works on her laptop, often with a frown creasing her otherwise pretty face.

JJ watches as the kid bounds over to the woman and wraps her in a big hug and she kisses the top of his sweaty head tenderly.

She tries to piece together what she can...because, somehow, Ethan knows Emily Prentiss.

* * *

Emily Prentiss lives in New York, just close enough to Alexandria that JJ can imagine going to one of the fan-meets, just far enough that she's never actually going to get there. Which, _okay_. She's been noticed by Emily four times and that means way more than being one of a crowd, no one memorable at all.

Four times noticed, three likes and one reply. The reply had been just three months ago and JJ still exults in it. It had been about, of all things, A.E. Blake.

A.E. Blake, world-famous author. She'd written the first _Criminal Minds_ book back when JJ had been a preteen and wasn't too cool to read young adult fiction (AKA before she found out about fanfiction) and she'd fallen immediately in love with the world where you didn't need to be a superhero to stop bad guys, you just needed a brain and a desire to help people. The books had come out every few years for the past ten years and, by the third, it was clear that _Criminal Minds_ had become a global phenomenon.

JJ hadn't known much about the author when she'd first started reading the series. She'd dreamed of meeting her, of learning what she might have planned for the later novels. When said later novels had come out, she'd cooled on them a bit, though she can't quite put her finger on why. The characters and the stories are still as compelling as always and she's never read a _Criminal Minds_ book without crying a little. But they'd shifted, bit by bit.

The media has been split on the later books. They've become more popular than ever, of course, and there are talks of an onscreen adaptation. But at the same time, there's been a flurry of think-pieces online critiquing the world that A.E. Blake had constructed and the favoured relationships and romance that have sold millions of books. JJ hasn't thought much about them, but some of the enthusiasm for the series has been tempered in her circles.

Though, that might have just been because of Emily and A.E. Blake now...

[ ](https://ibb.co/hVvLTqt)

For whatever reason, A.E. Blake had kept a low profile when it came to the media – never doing convention panels or autographs, never even showing her face to the fans – which, of course, lead JJ to wild speculations and fantasies about A.E. Blake. She imagined her a superhero in her own right, sharing intimate knowledge gained through experience of fighting crime by cloak of night, ready to whisk JJ away and save her from her painfully dull life in Nowhere, PA.

Unfortunately, that had never happened and JJ had lived out her days until the end of high school when she could get away on her own and little by little, some of her enthusiasm for _Criminal Minds_ had bled away, confined to the back of her mind and the back of her bookshelves.

Now, though, her two favourite things had collided.

When she'd found Em.V.P. years ago, Emily hadn't yet shot into the Youtube stratosphere and was still doing mukbang videos where she gorged herself on chocolate and other ridiculous things, so of course JJ had fallen instantly in love with her. “I swear I have a job,” Emily had said sheepishly, eating a dozen doughnuts, powdered sugar dusting the tip of her nose. “And a workout routine.” And, just to prove it, she'd lifted the hem of her turtleneck to show off a taut (albeit _pale_ ) stomach and if JJ hadn't officially been gay before, she certainly was now.

Then had come the video in which Emily had eaten a _massive_ bowl of Lucky Charms cereal with more gusto than JJ had ever seen _anyone_ eat cereal. “My Mother never allowed me to have 'junk' cereal growing up – when we were even in a country that had it,” she'd told her subscribers, rolling her eyes as if she were still a petulant child. “So, naturally, I had to have it at every opportunity. If she was out of the Embassy, I'd beg my nanny to get some. The rainbow marshmallows were my favourite.”

After that video went viral, she'd landed a commercial with Lucky Charms – she and some kid whose greatest dream had likely come true that day (and whom JJ and the rest of the EmVPeeps were insanely jealous of) eating cereal together for the camera. Not to mention the hundreds of subscribers it earned her every time it aired. Soon, she'd started making more videos, branching out from her humble face-stuffing roots into conversations and workout videos and book reviews.

Before long, Em.V.P. had become a _phenomenon_ and JJ had been there to watch the whole thing unfold. She'd felt a connection with Emily Prentiss because of it, had been protective and proud as though she'd been a close friend instead of a fan.

When the clamour had finally been loud enough and Emily had tweeted, _**okay gang you all want me to check out these criminal minds books so**_ _ **I**_ _ **guess**_ _ **I**_ _ **will**_ , JJ had been ecstatic. Her worlds would collide in the best of ways and she'd been certain that Emily would treasure the books of her childhood in all the ways that JJ had. There is still one book to go, the seventh and final one, and A.E. Blake has really been dragging her feet on it. Maybe – _maybe –_ Em.V.P. will be the one to light a fire under A.E. Blake's ass.

Instead, Emily had absolutely _razed_ the books. She'd found them tolerable enough to read until the end, but her tweets and videos had been scornful and mocking, picking out every detail from the books that hadn't worked, every moment that had required suspension of belief, every bit of the story that had been left to fanfiction to fix until now. _**THESE are the books that everyone's going gaga over?**_ She'd demanded on Twitter. _**I've never been so glad to have been too busy in my early twenties to read this garbage!**_

JJ had been easily persuaded, because it had been _Emily_ and Emily is nothing if not convincing in her mockery. Plus, it had been kind of fun to see her tear apart the books. Buzzfeed had done a three week feature highlighting all the best moments of Em.V.P.'s _Criminal Minds_ take-down. And everyone had been laughing about it until...

Somehow, it had reached @AEBlakewrites – sparse Twitter user who had rarely posted anything beyond retweets. And JJ had learned one fact about her childhood hero: A.E. Blake absolutely, positively can _not_ take criticism.

A.E. Blake's Twitter account had come alive with snide comments and asides about Youtubers, about _**children famous on the internet for doing nothing at all**_. Emily, not to be outdone, had begun responding in kind, replying to A.E. Blake and quoting her tweets and generally mocking her as often as possible. A.E. Blake's subtweets are often and vicious and Emily is smug in response, quick responses that never fail to tear apart the books.

A.E. Blake's rabid fans had followed her, launching into Em.V.P. stan Twitter space with clumsy, fierce attacks on Emily. JJ has been only too glad to set her thousands of followers – hashtag EmVPeeps, Emily's biggest and most devoted fans – after the Blake stans, just as merciless as their favourite idol has been.

It's been _fun_ and Emily's been having fun too. JJ takes it as a personal mission, following Emily's example and brawling with the anti-Peeps. It's only fitting that her one reply had been about A.E. Blake too.

And now, _maybe_ , she's going to have a chance to do much, much more than that. Ethan With a Water Bottle is somehow connected to Emily and JJ is determined to figure out how.

Fortunately, she has an in when it comes to ten year olds in Alexandria.

* * *

Reid says, “JJ,” in that sigh that makes it clear he's worried in that parental way he has, even though he's a nearly decade younger than her. Reid is always worried, in the way that someone who is terrified of technology and has no idea how to send an email gets. He's sure that JJ is going to be catfished online or be dragged into some kind of human trafficking ring or something equally horrific. Which JJ thinks is totally ridiculous because _he doesn't even have a Facebook_...

But that answer is enough information for JJ. “So, you _do_ tutor a kid named Ethan...”

Another sigh. “Ethan Miller. He's a nice kid. Moved here from Kansas City last summer and had a tough time fitting in.”

JJ counts the details in her mind, piecing them together, and coming up with nothing helpful. “Does he ever talk about Emily?” she finally decides to plunge in headfirst after tiptoeing around it for awhile.

“Who?” he says, even though JJ knows he knows who Emily Prentiss is...if for no other reason than that JJ herself never shuts up about her, even around Reid who is a certified Luddite.

JJ groans exaggeratedly and chucks him under the chin because she can and he hates it (but she's one of his only friends in college, considering the kid is barely prepubescent, so he's not about to say anything). At least Reid had given her a name, which is more than she'd had going in, so she's thankful.

She's about to head out to go home and Google the name Ethan Miller when the little bell over the ice cream parlour door chimes merrily and in walks Ethan, along with his mother. JJ gives a little squeak of surprise and tries to stare at them without seeming like she's staring. And Reid, adorably socially awkward as he is, _turns around_ to see what she's staring at.

She kicks him under the table to make him stop before he gets them caught. He yelps a little too loudly when she makes contact with his shin and she shushes him with a pointed look that he doesn't seem to understand.

“He's in here all the time,” he says to replace the moment of social ineptitude. Reid spends most of his free time in the ice cream parlour – because he's a teenager living on his own for the first time and ice cream makes up about ninety percent of his caloric intake – so, he would know who frequents it.

A look steals over JJ's face. She knows from the sign taped in the window that the shop is looking for help with the summer rush. She needs another job anyway, if she _ever_ wants to get out of Virginia, and she's pretty sure she can handle an ice cream scoop as well as anyone else. And if Ethan Miller happens to come in from time to time...well, she can ask him a few friendly questions, can't she?

Reid groans. “I don't think I like that look...” he says like she's Wile E. Coyote and he's watching the Roadrunner walk into her sights.

[ ](https://ibb.co/xC51FXn)

Garcia gives her wholehearted support to JJ's plan. At least partly because she's hoping to get free ice cream out of the deal. And because they have a deal that if JJ gets the chance to meet Emily, she has to bring Garcia along too.

JJ shows up to her first shift wearing an eager smile and the bright purple shirt with ice cream cones on the chest that is her uniform, feeling rather like an undercover agent. JJ is good at online sleuthing, at seeing a face or location in a selfie and pinning it down within minutes, at reverse image searching and digging up tweets from years ago to prove points. She hasn't done much offline sleuthing before, but it seems about the same. But with more walking.

There's already a crowd of kids lined up outside the store when she arrives, eager for their daily dose of sugar, and it gives JJ pause. For all of about thirty seconds before she remembers why she's there. She'll put up with almost anything for Emily.

A pretty brunette is waiting for her when she manages to fight her way through the prepubescent crowd to get into the store. Her arms are crossed over her chest and she wears a very pronounced frown and JJ wonders if she's late. “What are you doing here?” the woman demands.

“I...work here?” JJ says weakly. She knows she's about to make a fool of herself, as is her MO around pretty girls. The brunette snorts, unfriendly and JJ starts to get offended because this is _an ice cream parlour_ and you don't exactly need to be a rocket scientist to work here. “I had an interview,” she says with more righteousness than she feels.

“I know who you are,” the brunette replies, glaring at her for reasons JJ can't even begin to fathom. “I know why you're here and you're not getting anywhere near Ethan Miller.”

“Whoa.” JJ stares at her, even more bewildered than before. “Why...why would you think-” A sudden impossible thought crosses her mind. “How do you know who I am?” she demands, Reid's thousand warnings about being catfished flying through her mind.

The brunette stares at her, hostile and wary as though JJ has done _anything_ to deserve it. “You're the number one name on every block list in the _Criminal Minds_ fandom, _JJ_ ,” she says, narrowing her eyes at JJ who gapes back at her. “And I'm not letting you anywhere near that boy. Who _knows_ what you people are capable of.”

“What?” JJ echoes, baffled. “You think I'm... This is _real life_ , lady! And why would I do anything to the kid! I just want to know how he knows Emily!”

“Emily?” the brunette replies, brow furrowing. “He has nothing to do with Em.V.P. And if his mom...” She stops suddenly, snapping her mouth closed as though she's said too much.

_His mom_... JJ stares at her, the gears still whirring in her brain as she inserts this new almost-fact into the puzzle that is Ethan Miller. “Is that...” She takes a breath, because there's _no way_. Because the hot lady with a bad attitude writing in the corner of the cafe can't possibly be... “Is that _A.E. Blake's son_!?”

The brunette doesn't answer, suddenly very busy with getting the shop ready to open. She ducks behind the counter, JJ on her heels like a dazed duckling because what on Earth has she gotten herself into?

[ ](https://ibb.co/k2nCCFt)

A.E. Blake has a son. Everyone knows it because she dedicates every book to him. In the first, her dedication had been quiet and heartfelt: _**To the baby boy who is my fairytale**_. By the time the sixth one had come out, it had been heavier, weighty with unspoken words: _**To my son**_ and nothing more. There had been whole Tumblr screeds written about those dedications and A.E. Blake's relationship with her son.

JJ had never thought much about him until Beth Clemmons is dragging her into the backroom after her shift, eyes burning through her. “You can't tell _anyone_.” Beth says furiously. She hadn't actually given JJ her name – JJ had seen it on her name tag and then Googled it quickly during her break. She doesn't have a Twitter under her own name, as far as JJ can tell.

“Do you really think I'm going to expose A.E. Blake to the world?” JJ demands, incredulous. “I don't know what you've seen on Twitter, but I'm not _like_ that. I just wanted to talk to the kid and find out how he knows Emily Prentiss.”

Beth shakes her head, equally incredulous. “He doesn't know Emily Prentiss! Have you _seen_ his mother?”

JJ lifts her chin, smug. “Guess you don't know everything, then, Clemmons, because that kid _definitely_ knows Emily Prentiss.” The water bottle is _proof_ and she outlines it quickly, complete with video evidence.

Beth watches it very skeptically. “It's just a water bottle. He could have gotten it anywhere. If he's seen her videos, then he might've specifically looked for one like hers.”

“ _Or_ ,” she counters pointedly, “He's friends with Emily somehow. I know you want to go all Scully on me, but sometimes the obvious answer is true. Zebras and horses and all that.”

“The obvious answer is that Alex Miller has a son who's secretly hanging out with Emily Prentiss?” Beth says skeptically. “How is _that_ the obvious answer? They hate each other.”

The gears keep turning, her thoughts still flying all over the place, and the obvious answer suddenly seems like a whole lot more than any of this. “I'm not sure,” JJ admits, licking her lips in contemplation. “But I think I'm going to figure it out.”

She leaves with Beth's number punched into her phone and leaves work with a chocolate sundae for herself and one for Garcia, prepared to do some more old-fashioned online searching. She searches Twitter for their names, real and fake, for any references to Alexandria that she can find through all of Twitter.

It's from a single tweet from last year, one that had somehow never made it to fandom. An old locked account that had since been unlocked, _**Look at the EmVPeep I found in Alexandria**_ _ **'s coolest speakeasy!**_ Emily is grinning in the picture, doughnut in one hand, cocktail in the other, beside Derek Morgan (who JJ has actually met a few times because he coaches kids' football the same time she coaches soccer and to think she'd actually spoken to someone who'd spoken to Emily at some point...). And – in the reflection of the mirror behind the bar – JJ can see who'd taken the picture.

The woman from the cafe. Ethan's mom. _A.E. Fucking Blake_. JJ stares at it, open-mouthed, zooms in to try to catch her expression and can't read it because the lighting is terrible and the mirror is warped. She screencaps the whole tweet and sends it to Beth.

_**That proves nothing.** _

_**Look at the mirror**_ , JJ types back, entirely too smug. She digs her spoon into her ice cream and waits for Beth to respond because she's fucking right about this.

_**What does it mean?**_ Beth responds about five seconds later, clearly as invested in this as JJ is, for some reason.

_**Obvious answer**_ , JJ reminds her. She doesn't type the question mark, even though she has no fucking clue what the obvious answer even is.

Apparently, neither does Beth.

* * *

Reid continues to give JJ _nothing_ which is just plain rude. Some friend he is, refusing to even discuss Ethan, Emily, or A.E. Blake – whose real name is apparently _Alex Miller_ and who is sitting in the cafe in the booth across from JJ who is attempting to work on her summer readings, but in all honesty is just trying not to blatantly stare.

Emily, meanwhile, is needling her from Twitter. The notifications pop up, one by one.

[](https://ibb.co/k4nKfhF) [](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/)

JJ snorts at the last one and then glances up again, peeking at Alex Miller. Alex has let out a snort too, at almost the exact same time, and JJ wonders...

It can't be...

But then she's typing busily for a moment before sitting back, satisfied, as another tweet vibrates JJ's phone because, _yeah_ , of course she has A.E. Blake on notifications too. A.E. Blake is the queen of subtweets. She's never once actually acknowledged Emily on Twitter, but she's never failed to respond to a provocation at once, either. And she doesn't even _follow_ her.

[ ](https://imgbb.com/)

“Sick burn,” JJ mutters mockingly at her phone, typing exactly that.

Alex Miller says, “Excuse me?” Apparently her booth is within hearing distance when JJ is not-so-silently being overly invested in the woman's dramatic (maybe) personal life. She's looking at JJ as though she's sprouted a second head.

JJ stumbles over her words for a few moments, feeling her face get hot. “Just reading aloud,” she says, holding up her textbook that she paid a small fortune to not understand a word of. “You're Ethan's mom, right?” she says, changing the subject before Alex attempts to ask her literally anything about said textbook.

Alex stares at her, not quite unfriendly, but definitely not entirely friendly either, and it takes every ounce of JJ's self-control for her not to dig further, to overstep and ask questions about A.E. Blake and Emily Prentiss and _what the hell is going on_.

The thirteen year old inside of her wants to ask her a million other questions, wants to talk about how much _Criminal Minds_ had meant to her. She quashes that urge too and smiles brightly at Alex instead as her phone buzzes again.

She snatches it up before Alex can read the quoted tweet from Emily, even if she couldn't have seen it from across the aisle. Then, because she can't stand the awkwardness a single second longer, JJ quickly stands up to get a refill on her drink, feeling Alex's eyes on her back and hoping she hasn't aroused _too much_ suspicion.

[](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/)

She watches Alex carefully as she returns to her seat, expecting another snort or an irritable sigh. Instead, she gets a very different kind of sigh. Alex has softened, her smile affectionate, and JJ nearly drops her cup of coffee at the look on her face.

Maybe she hasn't checked Twitter yet. That must be it.

But no response on @AEBlakewrites is forthcoming, though Alex is typing furiously on her laptop. JJ ponders it for a long, frustrated moment. “It makes no sense,” she mutters. “It makes _no sense_.”

[ ](https://imgbb.com/)

The Blake stans are out in full force today, jumping on Emily as though she'd personally murdered their puppies instead of sending out a few snappy tweets. JJ dips into the fray: _**imagine thinking that the Hankel arc was more dramatic than that time Emily got drunk and talked about Abraham Lincoln and got attacked by a moth**_ and she tussles with three particularly angry and pretentious Blake stans before Beth is storming into the cafe.

“You need to stop,” she bites out, tossing one worried glance at Alex before she lowers her voice. “That tweet...”

JJ stares at her. “How did you know where I was? And what's your Twitter?”

Beth glares at her, ignoring her questions. “You can't tweet about them!” she hisses.

“Why not?”

“It's suspicious!”

JJ scoffs. “They're all I tweet about!” she hisses back. “It's suspicious if I _don't_ tweet about them!” She glances at Alex, who is ignoring them both and typing busily. She smiles at her screen for an unconscious moment before she rolls her eyes and types again swiftly. “What's she doing anyway? I thought for sure she'd reply to Emily.”

Beth shakes her head. “She never does,” she says loftily.

“Oh, please. She subtweets Emily _daily_ ,” JJ says, scowling. “Don't act like she's the bigger person. She's just too much of an asshole to keep it to DM's.”

“Isn't that what she's doing now, though?” Beth says pointedly, glancing back at the woman in the corner. She hasn't noticed them talking. She's far too absorbed in her typing, another smile creeping onto her face.

JJ freezes, her head whipping back around to Beth. “You think she's...?”

Beth raises her eyebrows.

JJ says, “No _way_.”

Alex's phone buzzes on the table, vibrating loudly, and JJ stares at it for one frozen moment before Beth slides into the booth next to her, hip checking her with such force that JJ's attention is snapped away. “Do _not_ look at her,” Beth says warningly, her hand tight on JJ's wrist to keep her attention when something so much more interesting is maybe going on in the next booth. “We are not going to invade her privacy just to solve this thing.”

“Also, if she sees us watching, then she might go outside,” JJ says. Beth flushes, which is confirmation enough. JJ grins. “You're just as invested in this as I am, aren't you?”

“Shhh,” is all Beth says in response, fidgeting uncomfortably in her seat.

JJ is too busy eavesdropping on Alex's conversation to notice.

“...you're impossible,” Alex is saying, her tone warm. “If you would stop antagonizing me-” She pauses, listening to the voice on the other end, then she sighs and says, “If Ethan insists.” But she's smiling again when JJ peeks over her shoulder and it _can't be_...

[](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/)

The next day, Ethan is hanging around after soccer practice waiting for his mom to pick him up. JJ is chasing down all the errant soccer balls and trying to think of the best way to start a conversation about Emily without sounding like she's _trying_ to start a conversation about Emily.

He's trying to practice juggling with his head (JJ had told the team she'd give a dollar to anyone who could juggle it with their head twenty times without stopping), but he stops when he sees her watching.

She smiles at him. “Looking good, kid. Keep it up like that and you'll leave me broke.” He grins widely back at her. “So, you like Em.V.P., huh?” she says, fishing with dynamite.

He's wearing another fandom shirt today – this one says, “Who care's what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” It's the opening line of a dramatic (and probably drunken) podcast Emily does with one of her best friends.

Ethan lights up. “Yeah! You know about Em.V.P.?”

“Sure do,” JJ says, clinking her water bottle with his in a silent nod to his shirt. “I've been a fan since way back before she was the Lucky Charms poster girl.”

“I've seen _all_ her videos,” Ethan says importantly. “And look-” He takes off his sweatshirt and shows her the back of his shirt, which says, “Unless evil's carrying the martini tray, darling...” JJ kind of wishes she had that shirt. “Mom _hates_ it,” he adds, grinning. “But I got it from...” He stops suddenly, remembering himself. “I got it from a friend,” he stumbles, “So she couldn't make me take it back.”

“Your mom isn't an Emily Prentiss fan?” JJ asks innocently.

Ethan shrugs, suddenly cagey. “I don't know,” he says. “She says her videos are a waste of time, but I've seen her watching them. Mostly the workout ones. She says they're very educational.” He considers that.

JJ, who has seen those workout videos far too many times, nods in perfect agreement with that assessment. “Workout videos are very popular with some women,” she says seriously.

Ethan nods as though he understands, contemplating his water bottle that used to be featured in many a workout video.

“I think Emily Prentiss is pretty cool,” JJ says conspiratorially.

Ethan laughs. “She _wishes_ ,” he says and JJ can easily imagine him, for a moment, as A.E. Blake's son. “She's such a dork. But I like her.” He flops to the ground, legs splayed out haphazardly, satisfied and lost in thought, and JJ watches him and doesn't quite understand any of this, but for the creeping suspicion still at the back of her mind.

“I like her too,” JJ says and Ethan shares a happy smile with her. There's something almost secretive to this kind of bonding, that knowledge that someone else out there has the same fandom as you. JJ likes this kid, even if he is A.E. Blake's little guy – and she's short enough on friends in real life who care about Emily Prentiss that she'll count Ethan as one of them.

“Hey,” Ethan says suddenly. “Maybe if... Maybe she comes here sometimes, you know?” He's looking at her, eyes shifty, as though he isn't quite sure that he can trust her. “Maybe she'd come here – like to the ice cream parlour – sometime really soon. I don't know.”

JJ tilts her head. She doesn't need to force her laugh. “Ethan, are you saying that Emily Prentiss would come all the way out here to Alexandria to eat ice cream?”

Ethan nods solemnly. “It's _really_ good ice cream,” he says with shrug.

JJ straightens then as she sees Alex Miller's car pull up and she comes rushing up looking as though she's running ten minutes late and knows it. “And here's your mom,” JJ says with false brightness.

“Ethan!” Alex says, wrapping him up in her arms as she comes though the gate. “I'm so late! I'm sorry!” She holds on tightly to him and he squirms out of her arms, looking embarrassed.

“It's fine, Mom. JJ watched me while I was waiting for you. She likes Emily too!” He beams at her while Alex eyes her with deep distrust.

JJ manages a tight smile. “Yeah,” she says, “I'm one of her legion of online fans.” If she hadn't already known who Alex was, she might have figured it out right then, in the wary way her eyes flicker over JJ. JJ just stares back, struggling to keep her gaze innocuous, and Alex turns away at last, putting a hand to Ethan's shoulder as they go.

[ ](https://imgbb.com/)

When JJ walks into the ice cream parlour for her shift later, Beth is frowning at her like she somehow knows about the conversation she had with Ethan. JJ groans. “Stop. I didn't say anything! I was talking to the kid about Emily and then his mom eyeballed me like _that_. I'm an _innocent_.”

Beth snorts. “You're far from innocent,” she says, still eyeing JJ suspiciously as best she can while she scoops ice cream out of the bottom of a tub.

JJ ties on her apron and washes her hands. “He said Emily might come to visit sometime really soon,” she says conversationally. “This ice cream parlour. In Alexandria. You think...?” She leaves the statement hanging deliberately, awaiting a reaction.

“I don't know what I think,” Beth says. “I know what _you_ think.” It's pronounced with some amusement instead of her usual disdain and somehow, that's even worse. “I've seen your tweets.”

“You _are_ going to tell me your Twitter one of these days,” JJ says, scrunching up her face. “And, yeah, of course I think that, _Scully_. It's the only thing that makes sense.”

Beth rolls her eyes. “Okay, _Mulder_ ,” she shoots back. “Because there's no other reasonable explanation for Emily Prentiss knowing Ethan Miller. Just...that.”

It's JJ's turn to roll her eyes. “You can say it, you know,” she says, lowering her voice anyway. “It's not a dirty word. _Blentiss_...” It's a stupid ship name, she'll admit, but someone had coined it and it just stuck – especially after fandom nicknamed Emily's signature Starbucks drink 'The Blentiss'.

Beth sighs as if she's suddenly very tired. She also has ice cream up to her elbow. “It's a joke,” she says, gesturing at her with an ice cream scoop. “Not even a good one.”

“Emily is metaphorically pulling A.E. Blake's pigtails every time they're online,” JJ argues. “Obviously she has a _crush_. And if they're also hanging out in real life, then that must mean that...”

“We're hanging out in real life,” Beth points out. “And we're not secretly dating, so...” JJ doesn't get the chance to argue that working together doesn't count as 'hanging out' before she continues. “They hate each other. I'll believe it when I see it.”

[](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/)

The thing about Blentiss is that it _is_ mostly a joke, invented by EmVPeeps to piss off the Blake stans. Sort of. Basically, like, every EmVPeep out there likes women, aside from the younger subset which they don't mix with unless said younger subset appears at soccer practice wearing a fandom shirt and carrying a suspicious water bottle. And Emily herself likes women, so it's really only natural that they'd take a discerning eye to every interaction she has with women online.

And she interacts with _no one_ more than A.E. Blake.

[ ](https://imgbb.com/)

Blake stans hate the fact that their vaunted Serious Author’s biggest claim to fame in the years since Book Six is a Twitter squabble that has captivated half the world. Blake stans _particularly_ hate the fact that EmVPeeps have decided that the squabbling women are doing it out of sheer sexual tension.

[](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/)

And, yeah, that antagonistic relationship is _totally_ JJ's jam. She's read more than a few fanfics about them – where A.E. Blake gets all hot and bothered by Emily's tweets and storms onto the set of one of her videos, where their tweets devolve into passionate sexting via DM's, and she's been avidly following that big hit fic where Emily goes to A.E. Blake's autograph session and they begin a long and angsty affair. It's been fun to speculate about something that would never happen, that _should_ happen in a perfect world, but there's no chance.

Except that maybe there is... And maybe they've been wrong about this all along. Beth is skeptical, but she keeps coming back each shift to contest it. “They'd be hiding it,” she says. “Ethan wouldn't be running around talking about Emily to every stranger he sees.”

“Everyone talks to their soccer coach,” JJ says, miffed at that. “I'm _fun_ and _approachable_. Just because you've got a stick up your ass, _Blake stan_...” Beth rolls her eyes and continues to not tell JJ what her Twitter is.

She's back the next day with a new argument. “I just don't see it. A.E. Blake doesn't even follow Emily. And she doesn't allow anyone but her mutual followers to message her. Which means that all their interactions are the ones we've seen. _None_ of that is leading toward romance.”

JJ snorts. “We don't know how famous people hang out. Maybe they have mutual friends.” Beth scoffs, but JJ plows onwards. “Maybe they were both on some list of the greatest influencers of the year and met at a reception.” Beth scoffs harder.

The next shift, she has yet another new argument. “Emily is too much of a...” She stops short.

Ethan blinks up at her from the other side of the counter. “Hey, Beth! Are you an EmVPeep too?” he asks excitedly and Beth stares down at him with a positively hilarious look of aghast denial on her face. JJ watches, grinning.

“I...” Beth recovers, frowns in vague comprehension. “Is that the Youtube lady JJ always talks about?” she says, her confusion impressive as _fuck_. The art of pretending to be fandom-ignorant is a delicate one that JJ has never mastered. With Beth, she nearly believes it.

Ethan eyeballs her, suddenly distrustful. “You wouldn't understand,” he says, chin jutting out in adolescent superiority. “JJ gets it.”

“Yeah, Beth,” JJ says smugly. “This is way more intense than you could handle.”

Beth rolls her eyes and turns back to pretending to be busy to avoid the conversation.

Ethan says to her back, “You should watch Emily's videos! She has workout routines and all that kind of stuff that you would like. I could show you the best ones!”

Beth turns to look at him, suddenly at a loss. And JJ leans against the counter, thoroughly enjoying this exchange.

“Have you seen _any_ of them?” he asks Beth, persistent.

The parlour door opens and JJ looks away from them for a moment to greet the customer. A woman has walked into the shop, sunglasses perched on her nose and a casual baseball cap over her dark ponytail. JJ's heart stops for just a moment. “Beth...” she says, voice strangled.

The woman is coming toward them and Ethan turns around to see where they're staring and brightens. “You're here!”

“Hey, kid,” the woman says, scooping Ethan up under her arm and ruffling his hair. “Your mom thought I'd find you here. Says you have a crush on your soccer coach.”

Ethan looks horrified. “ _Ew_ ,” he says. JJ is still staring at the woman, her mouth hanging open. Beth puts her finger under JJ's chin and closes her mouth for her. “Come on!” Ethan says, promptly forgetting JJ and Beth. “I _told_ you _,_ they have the best ice cream here – you have to try it!”

“Right.” The woman smiles briefly at JJ who nearly falls over. “Any chance we can get some of this famous ice cream?”

“Sure. I can... I have ice... Ice cream,” she stammers and the woman gives her an odd smile. “On the house.” She's not sure Beth is going to like that, but she's not sure she trusts herself to handle change right now.

The woman takes the cones, smiling at her absentmindedly but with eyes only for Ethan. Ethan is chattering, prior promises forgotten in favour of telling the woman about his last soccer game and the book he's reading for tutoring, and they settle down in one of the booths near the back.

“That was... That was Emily, right?” Beth says, staring at the booth. “That was definitely Emily. Don't you...want an autograph or something?”

“Shhh,” JJ hisses, finding her voice at last. “This is more important than that.”

Beth squints at her as though she's wondering if she's suffering a freeze headache. “What is?”

“The _truth_ ,” JJ says and she stares determinedly at the counter, avoiding Emily's curious glances.

It works. Emily talks to Ethan until she seems to have forgotten JJ's behaviour altogether and she comes up to purchase two sodas. “Long trip coming in,” she says, conversational, and JJ nods and smiles.

“You from out of town?” she says as though she doesn't _know_.

“New York. Hey, how's Ethan settling in?” She sounds worried, protective of him, and JJ reminds herself that she absolutely _cannot_ tweet about this, no matter how fondly it makes her feel toward Emily.

“He's doing well, I think. He's one of the team by now,” JJ says, keeping her voice steady. It's getting easier by the moment. Emily is so plainspoken, as natural in real life as she is online, and it isn't hard to see her as a _person_ instead of a _celebrity_. “And he talks about friends at school and...”

“What about his mom?” Emily persists. And JJ blinks at her, back to wordless.

“They... They seem close,” she manages at last. “They spend a lot of time together.” It's what Emily wants to hear apparently, because she gives JJ a warm smile that has her flushed and stammering and she wanders back to Ethan's booth.

Beth lingers near the counter, bumping into JJ as she takes orders while JJ is star-struck. The parlour is getting busier as the afternoon gets warmer and Emily and Ethan stay in their booth together, thick as thieves, ordering more ice cream than any two people could possibly eat.

[ ](https://imgbb.com/)

It's only after the afternoon crowd is settled that the door opens and Alex Miller finally enters. Beth is the one to notice first and she seizes JJ's arm and squeezes. “Look,” she hisses.

Alex takes a seat at the table, next to Ethan. JJ can't see Emily's face when she looks at Alex's, but she sees Alex's smile, the curved, affectionate one that she normally saves for Ethan.

They sit for awhile together, all three engrossed in conversation, and JJ sneaks glances at them as she winds around the parlour, washing tables sticky with ice cream. Emily is loud and animated, Ethan full of energy, and Alex is muted, listening more than she speaks up. When she does speak, both of her companions have such looks of sheer fondness on their faces that JJ craves to understand.

They finish up and Ethan departs from their booth to go to the bathroom as Alex and Emily sip the remnants of their drinks. “You eat like a child,” Alex murmurs, wrinkling her nose at the empty bowls and waffle cone crumbs.

Emily nudges her. “It's one of my best qualities,” she says, leaning comfortably against Alex's shoulder for a moment. JJ busies herself with clearing their table, swallowing hard.

The crowd is beginning to disperse as afternoon melts into early evening and JJ decides that Beth has everything under control when Emily and Alex wander outside the parlour to wait for Ethan. The front patio is empty, lit with little fairy lights, and they're standing in the middle of the pool of light from the nearest streetlamp as they murmur to each other. JJ slips out the side door to peer around the corner.

“No concept of privacy,” Beth hisses into her ear as she passes by her.

Emily is leaning against the half wall at the sidewalk, tugging Alex closer as she presses a kiss to her lips. JJ can't make out their faces or hear what they're whispering to each other, but she can see so much:

1\. The way they almost sway as they kiss, movement like dancing.

2\. Every breathy sigh loud as a dozen whispers.

3\. Alex's hand splayed out on Emily's cheek, cradling it.

4\. The way they part after the kiss, silhouetted in the light of the streetlamp with their foreheads pressed together.

5\. Em.V.P. and A.E. Blake in an embrace once more as though they can't get enough of each other.


	2. Before

[](https://imgbb.com/)

Ethan hasn't spoken to her in twenty-four hours, as of five minutes ago. Not that Alex is keeping count...except that she absolutely is because this is misery at its finest and she's always had a gift for cataloguing that. Ethan had said a sleepy good morning to her yesterday and then he hadn't spoken to her once over the duration of the evening after soccer.

_How was soccer practice?_ Grunt.

_Did you make any new friends?_ Grunt.

_Do you like your coach?_ Grunt.

_Is it better than Kansas City?_ A final grunt, this one quieter than the rest because _of course_ it's better than Kansas City. A tent in the middle of nowhere would have been better than Kansas City and this is about as close as Alex is willing to get to that. Ethan had been bullied mercilessly at his last school, to the point that he'd come home crying more than once and Alex had made the decision to move after the school's incompetence at addressing it.

Ethan had been born with a condition called Barth Syndrome and one of the things it affects is his facial features and if there is one thing kids are not good at, it's accepting those who look markedly different. Ethan knows he's different, he doesn't need anyone else to point it out.

Ethan had hugged her tightly after she'd told him they were moving – he'd been ecstatic to have a new start, chattering on about Alexandria like it would be _their_ town, the perfect new home.

Then, during the chaos of packing, Ethan had come across her correspondence with the Inova Heart and Vascular Institute. She'd planned on telling him when the moment was right; part of the reason for the move was that he'd qualified for a study on his condition, a study that had promising results on delaying effects of the disease and Alex would do anything to keep him healthy. But all Ethan had heard was that there would be more tests, more doctors, more nights in the hospital when she had promised they would discuss it before she agreed to sign him up for any more studies.

Ethan stopped talking to her after that. They'd unpacked their boxes in grim silence, Ethan ignoring her questions until Alex had been frustrated to near tears and he had stormed up to his new room and refused to even explore the house or the town with her. He goes to tutoring and soccer practice now, trudges home, and tells her he hates her when they manage to talk enough to fight.

Ethan gets that from her – that he can hold a grudge for so long, so angrily. Alex hasn't written a word in weeks, stares at her screen and produces nothing at all because Ethan is her world and it stops turning when he's so upset.

Not that she'd get all that much done if he weren't, she's forced to concede. She's on her third draft extension and her editor is beginning to lose patience with her. There is only so much goodwill she can foster with her fame when she's this far behind schedule and she knows it.

But the problem remains, looming in front of her, that she doesn't know _how_ it ends. In the past, ideas had come to her like snowflakes, fluttering in one by one and building upon each other little by little until she has a drift and then a blizzard. Book Seven has had no such snowflakes, no new concepts falling into her thoughts, nothing that _fits_ on the page, and she writes mindlessly and feels dissatisfied, scraps draft after draft in defeat.

Nothing _works_. It's been eleven years since she'd begun this saga, writing through heartache as she'd first learned of Ethan's diagnosis as an infant, the struggle of her husband leaving her upon finding out. Ethan had learned to walk – in spite of the doctors saying he might not ever walk – just as she'd begun sending out the manuscript and _Criminal Minds_ is irrevocably tied to him and his disease.

She had never expected it to become so much more than just their story, for it to become the world's story, for them to have _demands_ and for pieces of the narrative rejected outright and for her to, two books later, discover that what she wants to write will have to be woven around what _satisfies the audience_. And now, faced with her son's silence and the world's clamouring for an ending worthy of the series, Alex is at a loss.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

Today has been one of the longest stretches without words and Alex counts the days automatically, wants to cry with despair at how long Ethan can continue this. Twenty-four hours and five minutes. Twenty-four hours and six minutes. Twenty-four hours and...

“That's Emily Prentiss,” Ethan says suddenly and Alex jumps, startled at the sound.

“Who?”

Ethan points at the cereal box in her hands. “Emily. She makes videos,” he says, then he stares at the table again.

Alex peers at the box, searches for a dozen questions to ask him, but can't find the words to speak. He eats his cereal in silence, eyes glued to the box and then, as always, his face settles into a scowl and he grabs his bag and leaves to go to his tutoring session. Alex opens her mouth to offer to drive him, as if that would change anything, but he's already out the door, slammed it shut behind him, before she can get the words out and she's struggling not to sob.

She heaves a weary sigh and glares at her unused laptop, glances back at the cereal box that had gotten Ethan to speak. There's an attractive brunette on the back of the box, posing ridiculously with the rainbow marshmallow over her head and she's beaming, showing a set of perfect white teeth and one dimple. The caption reads: _**Breakfast of Champions with Em.V.P.!**_ She doesn't yet know that it's a subtle reference to Emily's affection for Kurt Vonnegut.

Alex sits down at her laptop, grimly determined to understand her son.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

Em.V.P., Alex discovers, has become famous for the most absurd of reasons: videos of her _eating_. She watches one out of morbid curiosity, then another, then a third.

She doesn't know why exactly she can't stop watching. It certainly isn't for the eating, which makes her cringe more than anything. But there's something about the way that Emily Prentiss chats with the camera that is endearing – the way she seems to share so much so casually and doesn't put on a show. She has a dozen videos where she only talks about various shows she's seen and Alex watches every one that day, spellbound.

By the time she looks up, it's nearly time for Ethan to return home and she hasn't written a word _again_. This time, though, she can't quite regret the past day. She's no closer to understanding Ethan, but she's beginning to grasp why it is that Em.V.P. appeals to him. She's sarcastic and self-deprecating and has a terrible sense of humour that could only strike a chord with a ten year old – Wednesday Addams with a shit-eating grin. But she's also painfully honest, shrugging off past experiences of a tumultuous childhood in between ridiculous pranks and attempted challenges. She lives with a dozen traumas, seemingly never repressing them as Alex and Ethan do so well.

Ethan still isn't talking to her in the evening. She sits with him as he does the practice worksheets sent home by the genius that tutors him, watching his brow furrowing and venturing more than once, “Do you need a hand with that?” Ethan glowers at the paper and grunts, which could mean anything.

She takes it as an invitation, emboldened by a day watching Emily Prentiss take on the world. She moves gingerly across the room to peer down at his math problems. Ethan refuses to respond, but she knows he's listening as she talks him through it, which feels like win enough.

He does his math and then retreats to his room and Alex comes up at bedtime. Ethan is already in his pyjamas, tucked into bed with a copy of _Criminal Minds_ wrapped in his arms like a teddy bear, his head on his pillow and his eyes closed as though he's sleeping.

He isn't, of course. Alex can hear his uneven breathing from the door and she takes careful steps across the room, bending down to press a kiss to his temple. “I love you,” she whispers. “To the moon and back.” She sees the tears slipping out from beneath his eyelids, a tiny concession to the fact that they're both suffering in silence. She kisses his temple again and then steps away, breathing raggedly.

She writes more that night than she's written in weeks.

* * *

There is a magic to Em.V.P. and Alex is startled at how easily she gets caught up in it and in Emily Prentiss. She keeps an eye on Ethan's web history and she knows that he's watching her videos on his iPad, over and over again with almost single-minded focus. The surprise is that she keeps doing the same.

Oh, there are some that are _understandable_ , at least. The workout ones are the ones that Ethan rarely watches, mostly because they're sheer fanservice. Alex watches those more than is perhaps reasonable. But the others: Emily talking about growing up in Russia during the Cold War and being bullied for being the 'Amerikanskiy' while she eats a pizza, Emily remembering a her first sort-of-boyfriend in a video that is just her dangling upside down from her couch – hair haloed around her head and face flushed with blood; those are the ones that Alex can't stop watching.

Emily reviewing books is one of her favourite things to watch as well. There's an enthusiasm to her when she enjoys them that appeals to Alex in a very specific way. There is little Alex loves more than watching someone enjoy a good book. There is a magic to it, to uncovering a new world and immersing completely within it, and Emily does so with all the gusto that it deserves.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

And, inevitably, it's Alex's books that Emily picks up eventually.

Ethan still isn't talking to her, but there's a quiet anticipation in the house the morning after Emily promises to read _Criminal Minds_. Ethan eats quickly, running to get his iPad and check Twitter over and over again. Alex bites her lip and watches in silence, offering him a tentative smile that he almost returns.

_Criminal Minds_ is as much his as it is hers, stories they've woven together over the years. She'd written the first when he was an infant, the characters as new to her as motherhood had been. Ethan had grown up on _Criminal Minds –_ although, perhaps crime stories didn't make the best bedtime tales for a young child – perched on Alex's lap while she read to him. They haven't read any together in months, but she likes to imagine that he still cares.

Or maybe he doesn't. Maybe he knows what's going to happen.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

She'd come to terms a long time ago with the idea that she can't please everyone. Yes, her novels had enjoyed widespread success, but with that comes doubt and jealousy and more focused criticism. More people read, struggling to understand the appeal, and the ones who don't will tear apart her stories more readily. More people read and others will reject her books simply because of that fact.

But Emily Prentiss has never struck Alex as the sort of person to dislike something only because it is beloved. Her book reviews are earnest and enthusiastic, even when she doesn't love the book in question, and it's startling and off-putting how much sheer _venom_ she puts into her tweets about _Criminal Minds_.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

The videos are even worse. Emily dissects every weak moment and turns some of her strongest scenes on their heads. “This is cheap, poorly-written drama for the sake of being drama,” she complains onscreen, making a face. “There's no thought or creativity. And don't even get me _started_ on the crap characters.”

Alex is stung. The internet is abuzz with this: a Youtube darling whose reviews of _Criminal Minds_ have made a laughingstock of it. All her mentions on her rarely-used Twitter account are from a gang of users who call themselves EmVPeeps, posting mocking excerpts from her book and attacking characters and stories alike.

It's an infuriating headache, one which Alex is far too proud to fight back against because she's a world-famous writer who does _not_ need to sink to Em.V.P.'s level. She refuses to acknowledge Emily at all. Instead, she writes a snide tweet, carefully phrased for maximum devastation.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

Emily, apparently, has no such compunction. Her reply is swift and cutting.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

The floodgates are opened and Emily proves to be tireless in her quest to drag Alex down with her. There are new tweets from @Th3_EmVP in her mentions daily, some aggressively critical and some just mocking.

[](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/)

Alex gives back as good as she gets, never one to take this kind of needling lying down. She's absorbed in it, in defending her books and striking out at Emily without ever tweeting her directly, and she writes little in between her Twitter battles with Emily and her unimaginatively named EmVPeeps.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

Emily follows her on Twitter and Alex refuses to return the favour, to make any notice of Emily's existence that isn't in snide tweets that enough people know are directed toward Emily. Acknowledging Emily means validating her reading experience and Alex is far too angry to do _that_.

She's also surprisingly hurt by it. There had been a part of her that had thought that her books could have been for Emily what Em.V.P. had been for Alex. One of Alex's main characters had shared Emily's difficult childhood travelling the globe with an inattentive mother and she'd been foolish enough to hope that she might have struck a chord with Emily, that the character might have been someone Emily could love.

Instead, Emily's wholesale rejection of her series burns and she's morose and infuriated in equal measure. The exchanges bring her to life as little has in recent times, lost as she's been in Ethan's resentment and bitterness. She can feel fury thrumming through her and she clings to it, even as her mood dips lower and lower.

Emily crosses a line, at last, and Alex loses all control.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

She launches into her direct messages with righteous fury, typing out a stilted comment that takes three tries before she can word it properly.

[](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/)

She blocks Emily, then unblocks her a day later for reasons she doesn't contemplate. It's easier to deal with the enemy when she can _see_ her, she supposes. Emily follows her again so promptly after the unblock that she must be keeping an eye on Alex's account at all times.

The direct messages continue from there, somehow. She doesn't know why she's so focused on Emily Prentiss, but it's becoming more and more difficult to ignore her. Her direct messages are a combination of more teasing and an awkward sort of conversation that has Alex more flummoxed with each exchange.

[](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/)

She refuses to answer Emily's more intrusive questions, but Emily is back the next day, prodding at her like a mosquito too distant to swat. Alex fires back responses, ignores the questions that have her stymied, and makes at least a dozen references to Emily's cereal video within twenty-four hours.

There is something addictive about fighting with Emily, something she could get used to. The months since moving to Alexandria have felt a lot like being asleep, in this quiet town where she has no friends and a son who has rejected her and even her editor is giving her space. She hadn't thought of herself as lonely until she finds herself craving Emily's chatter, her arguments and her jibes, her messages that Alex shuts down as quickly as they come.

She must be truly desperate.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

* * *

* * *

First of all, provoking A.E. Blake is _fun_.

No, that isn't 'first of all', that's one hundred percent all of it, the complete and full reason why Emily can't help herself. Blake is absolutely withering in her criticism, but she also boasts a surprisingly fragile ego for someone who's been subjected to critique since her first two books had soared into popularity. It's like scratching a mosquito bite. She knows it's a bad idea, but she can't help herself.

She sends Blake a link to a porno she finds that's been inspired by _Criminal Minds_ , just to watch her explode.

[](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/)

Blake _watches_ it and comes back with a list of characterization issues, including: _**3.) Hotchner is far too aggressively heterosexual to get involved in an orgy**_ and _**11.) Strauss doesn't share**_ which are both valid points and Emily really has no reason to spit out half her drink all over her screen.

When she's done cleaning off her laptop, Blake is gone again, ignoring her messages, and Emily sends out some tweets with snappy wording about exactly how straight Hotchner is. _That_ gets Blake's attention and she retorts with a subtweet about how anyone who thinks that Hotchner is a homophobe must simply be _**lacking basic reading comprehension**_.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

She gets new DM's over that one, these defensive, but illuminating in a whole different way.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

Because Blake had just solidly... _had she really?_ Did Blake just say that she...?

Emily sits on this bombshell for nearly a day before she's ready to burst, before she has a thousand questions for her rival, including: _so wh_ _y_ _don't you watch my workout videos?_ And: _were you flirting back when I was flirting with you?_ She settles instead on a far more neutral topic.

_**Then why are all your characters in toxic straight relationships?**_ she demands and she doesn't get a response for awhile.

When she does, it's far less illuminating. _**The general public would disagree with you on that.**_

_**The general public loves toxic straight relationships**_ , Emily retorts. _**You're supposed to be better than that.**_

Blake doesn't respond to that at all.

* * *

Maybe that's a part of why the books rile her up so much. Because A.E. Blake, the more Emily speaks to her and the more she reads her Twitter and her interviews and pretty much anything about the reclusive writer that might shed some light onto her thought process, seems like someone who _does_ share Emily's perspective on a lot of this. And it's an ongoing, consistent disappointment to see that someone like her can still wind up writing such _garbage_.

The first two books aren't that bad, to be fair. They're shaky at times, but the characters shine through and make her feel genuinely fond of the found-family they form. The third and forth had had enough bits and pieces that had felt authentic to the initial spirit of the series that Emily had gotten through them easily.

It had been the fifth that had broken her. She'd gone into it with high hopes for the characters she'd liked best and she'd been crushed at where they'd gone. Blake had lost whatever spark there had been that had made the first books so _good_.

There are theories about it, articles and posts that her fans had linked her to while she'd been reading the fifth and sixth books. Some point to her dedications to the more recent books as a sign that there's some tension at home that have changed the books' direction. Some say that she must be in some kind of terrible relationship now.

She holds her personal life so close to her chest that the public can't help but speculate. Emily likes to do the opposite – to share just enough that no one wonders about the purposely-hidden gaps in between. Or maybe it's only that she's a product of never having anyone listen to her growing up and those long-contained words are spilling out now.

She wonders if Blake has seen her videos. She wonders if Blake has ever read her tweets and thought about them and seen them as something other than sniping.

She only wonders these things in quiet, sappy moments, when her tweets are melancholy and she hasn't verbally sparred with Blake in days. There are times even now when the weight of her loneliness feels too heavy, when internet celebrity can't disguise the fact that she's on her own, just as she's always been.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

She regrets that tweet as soon as she sends it and she deletes it at once. It's too late, of course. Her followers will have it and pass it around and she can already see the worried replies coming in through her quality filter. She makes a quick light comment about how she'd _**just been roleplaying as an ae blake character**_ and logs off, lying alone in her bed and staring at the ceiling.

The truth about Emily Prentiss, the one that doesn't shine through except in those snide think-pieces by Buzzfeed wannabes, is that for all her popularity online, she's never even known what it means to _matter_. Her own mother hadn't wanted her, except as a well-behaved doll she could show off to all the foreign dignitaries at parties and then shoo away to be looked after by nannies until she was needed again. Sometimes, she wonders if the world might have been a better place if she'd never been born at all.

She's had a few bad relationships over the years, marked by betrayals and lies, at her hands and theirs. She'd had an abortion at fifteen after a stupid mistake (see bad relationships) and though she'd wanted _so badly_ to keep her baby, in her heart she'd known she just couldn't be a mother. She'd ultimately become an adoption counsellor out of some gnawing desire to help the babies that her own could have been, if things had been different. Instead, it's a hard, often heartbreaking job that eats away at her soul little by little because she just _can't stop_ thinking about her own child.

She thinks about quitting sometimes. She doesn't need a job, not with the revenue from her videos and merchandise coming in. But without the occasional fanmeets – and she can't do too many of those without looking truly pathetic – her job is the only reason she has to leave her apartment some days.

She isn't supposed to think about any of this. She'd been reading _Criminal Minds_ Book Four again, which always puts her in a crappy mood, and she knocks the book off her nightstand and onto the floor in a sudden bout of frustration.

A moment later, her phone pings.

It's, of all people, A.E. Blake. _**Your fans are abuzz about your last tweets**_ , she says and Emily rolls her eyes and ignores it, staring at her lockscreen blankly. Another one pops up. _**They seem to think that I must have done this to you.**_ Emily stares until the messages are gone and her phone screen is black again.

Ten minutes later, Blake tries again. _**You know that they believe we're in a secret relationship, don't you?**_

Emily laughs aloud, jolted from her mood in startled delight. _**I know that**_ , she writes back. _**Didn't know you knew that...how have you not subtweeted them about it by now?**_

_**I won't acknowledge their idiocy**_ , Blake responds primly. _**Your fans are trying to get a rise out of my fans.**_

_**Plus they think it's funny because.......well you know**_ , Emily types leadingly.

Blake answers only with a question mark and Emily says, _**You wrote the most offensively straight books of all time??**_ She's grinning now, she notices suddenly. There's nothing like squabbling with Blake to cheer her up.

_**You keep saying this, but my eleven million followers say otherwise**_ , Blake retorts. Emily prepares to make some very apt comparisons about other things that eleven million people have been stupid enough to support when another message comes in. _**And I assume they think it's funny because of all the sexual tension between us**_.

Emily gapes at her phone for a moment. Did Blake just... _**You're really trying to cheer me up, huh?**_ she messages which is nearly as startling as Blake acknowledging any sexual tension to begin with.

Blake is offended at that somehow. _**I'm not joking. You've made it fairly obvious that you get off on instigating fights with me. Your fans are just picking up on that.**_

Okay, first of all, Emily doesn't _get off_ on them and Blake is a _liar_ if she says she doesn't...

She looks back at their last few public exchanges and winces.

[](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/)

So, maybe they've been going a little overboard lately. They can have chatty, coherent conversations in DM's at times, but their tweets are charged and it's easy to read them as bitter or as something else entirely. Emily hasn't exactly been subtle and...

_**And yes**_ , Blake types suddenly.

_**Yes what?** _

_**Yes, I am trying to cheer you up.**_ A reluctant pause and then, _**I do know that feeling of being alone, even while you're surrounded by millions online. I'm not a very social person. You might have deduced that on your own.**_ Wry, self-effacing. It's a gift from Blake, a little more revealed than ever before and Emily holds her breath and waits while the little symbol on the screen indicates that Blake is still typing.

But it's only two final sentences that emerge after a few minutes of typing. _**I am surprised that you feel this way, though. You've always seemed much more sociable than me in your videos.**_

So, Blake _has_ seen some of her videos. Emily toys with the idea of jumping on that, but it feels wrong in this conversation, where Blake has opened up just a bit in response to Emily's vulnerability. _**Not sociable**_ , she says wryly, _**I just have no filter.**_

_**It's very endearing.** _

_**See, this is why my fans think we're in love...** _

She can almost imagine the scoff, even if she can't picture the woman forming it. _**I'm only stating why it is that people would like you. You have a quality that draws them in. My son adores your videos because he sees you as honest in a way that he's never seen me.**_ It's a grudging admission and Emily looks askance at it.

When uncomfortable, she falls back on humour. _**You have a quality that draws people in too – bad tempered rich milf is absolutely my speed.**_

_**Must you be so crass?** _

Online, Emily can't tell if Blake is irritated or amused. She goes with the former and stops, penitent. _**I'm sorry you're having a hard time with your son.**_

_**It's a rough patch. It'll pass.**_ But she sounds more like she's trying to convince herself of that and Emily aches for her.

She changes tack, avoiding the topic of the son when Blake offers no more detail. _**I think you underestimate the effect your books have had on people. You have that quality too.**_

_**You can't have it both ways, Ms. Prentiss**_ , Blake answers dryly. _**You can't tell me how terrible my books are and in the same breath claim that they're changing lives.**_

Emily wants to respond with some kind of admission, whether it's _I read the scene where the main character and her mother make tentative peace before bed every night_ or _the main character and the media liason make me crave a relationship like that_ or even _I don't think I would hate your books nearly as much if Book Four hadn't left me hoping for so much_.

But they have a dynamic that relies on something else entirely and it might come crashing down if she says that much for no reason at all. Maybe someday. Maybe that time will come, when they can be perfectly honest and it'll be worth it.

For now, she shoots back with, _**I didn't say that they were changing lives for the better**_ and she exhales and imagines Blake laughing in response, a phantom without a face.

* * *

* * *

Ethan is growing more morose, which Alex hadn't even known was possible. He's quieter than before, the grunting and sullenness all but gone and in its place is something muted and dull.

She doesn't dare ask him about it, not at first. Not when there's so much still unspoken between them and when he'll barely even let her love him if it isn't under the cover of night. Night is the only time when he'll let her come close, when she can give him a kiss and tell him that she loves him without his illness coming between them again.

And night is when she can see that he's listless, that he barely even touches his iPad anymore. He curls up in bed without even _Criminal Minds_ in his arms and Alex tries, tentative, “What's wrong?”

It seems a ridiculous question to ask. She _knows_ what's wrong. It's the same thing that's been wrong for months, since a single folder full of correspondence had turned their lives upside down. But something has shifted even there and Alex wonders...

A part of her looks at Ethan without his book in his arms and wonders if Emily's tweets had ruined the one last thing they'd had together.

She sucks in a shuddering breath, refusing to crack just yet, and she whispers, “Is it Emily?”

Ethan's eyes fly up to meet hers in frightened confirmation and he burrows deeper into his bed. His eyes are wet and red and Alex steps forward, stricken by them. “Ethan, please talk to me,” she pleads, “I know you're angry with me, but...”

“She hates my books!” Ethan bursts out and then he's crying, sobbing into her shirt as she rushes forward to hold him, her heart cracking at his hurt. A part of her had been certain that Ethan had rejected her for Emily, that Ethan had rejected _Criminal Minds_ for Emily, and it had hurt her more than she'd thought possible.

But _no_ , Ethan hasn't rejected the books that are a part of them. He feels as though Emily – his idol, his anchor in a home where he's been struggling – has rejected _him_ and Alex hugs him tightly, mumbling soothing whispers in his ear. “I'm sorry, baby,” she murmurs. “I'm so sorry.”

He clings to her as he hasn't in so long, burying his face in her shirt. “I didn't know... I didn't even know you knew who she was until I saw you tweeting,” he whimpers. “I promise, she isn't _like_ that usually. I don't know why she hates us, but...”

“Ethan, _no_ ,” Alex rushes to reassure him. “She doesn't hate you. I've... I've seen a lot of her videos. She would love you if she knew you. She just has some hangups about the books. Not everyone is going to love everything I've written.”

“I do,” Ethan says fiercely and Alex holds him tightly, feeling as though a tiny breakthrough has finally come to them.

She reads to him from _Criminal Minds_ that night for the first time in months, Ethan curled up beside her in her big bed. He falls asleep with his head on her shoulder and Alex sends one furious DM before she drifts off, her heart broken and healing just a bit in a single night.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

* * *

* * *

With one bafflingly bad-tempered message from Blake, Emily is left absolutely bewildered. She'd thought things had been going well – or as well as they can be when your nemesis is topping lists of _Most Successful Writers of the Decade_ and your claim to fame is getting drunk and talking about history (and then not remembering any of it the next morning).

Still, Emily is kind of wildly attached to unattainable women, so there's that.

They've had a few more serious conversations since the last, but they feel fleeting, like one wrong word and they'll fade away again in favour of the comfort of verbal battles. They're usually playful, light and snide without ever crossing any lines, and Emily has been content with most of them.

But every now and then, Blake manages to land a new blow that hits hard and her last message is one of her most cutting somehow. _**The damage you're doing is innumerable. I am done with you.**_

She's lying about being done with Emily, that much Emily knows because she says that three times a week and still returns to have the last word _again_ each time. But there's a genuine hurt to her message, a reminder of kids that Emily has somehow hurt with her fun, and Emily frowns.

She flips off the quality filter and glances through her notifications on Twitter. They're a mess, of course. Half of them are about her latest video and half of them are about _Criminal Minds_ , as usual. Her fans are egging her on, Blake's fans are replying scathingly to her tweets, and aside from some near hysterical replies that come close to threatening her for her dislike of the series, the most scarring she seems to be doing is from laughing replies from EmVPeeps informing her that she's ruining their childhoods.

_Wait_. She pauses, frowning at the next tweet she sees. It's from earlier in the night, a plaintive comment from a fan.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

She clicks on the fan's name and reads through the tweets. They're written by a kid, a little boy who has the presence of mind not to be a part of her fandom. Instead, he tweets to her over and over again, each more desperate than the last.

He's miserable and lost and her heart hurts as she scrolls down. He'd been hit hard by her hatred of _Criminal Minds_ and he refers to it more than once as _his_. He's having some issues with his mother too and he's...

... _oh_. He's sick, possibly fatally so, and dealing with his own mortality. Emily feels even worse now than she had at first.

Maybe Blake had been right. Maybe she's been doing harm where she hadn't realized. She thinks once more of Blake and her own turmoiled relationship with her son and her guilt triples and quadruples, her heart clenching.

She reads the kid's whole feed, an unpleasant pit in her stomach, and she drifts off to sleep with her phone still in her hand, feeling for the first time in awhile as though she really is a failure.

* * *

In the morning, she comes up with a plan.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

She'll send the kid something nice and maybe tone down the _Criminal Minds_ hate on Twitter, at least a little bit. She can keep it in her DM's, anyway, where it's fun to fight Blake. The kid doesn't need to see any of it.

He gives her an address in Virginia, just a few hours away, and she puts together a care package for him – a notebook, some shirts, a water bottle. A list of her favourite books (kid appropriate ones, of course), just in case he wants to swap out the _Criminal Minds_ obsession. A few stickers and posters.

She doesn't realize until she's done that she's got way too much to mail and she inspects the pile of goodies again, contemplating what she can put away. She's determined to do right by this kid, who seems so heartbroken by her rejection of his favourite books that she can't quite shake him from her heart.

She breathes in, remembers the address again: Alexandria, Virginia...

She's in the car before she can think through her plan, driving up to Alexandria with a car full of Em.V.P. merchandise. This is probably her worst idea yet, but she can't shake the thought of a boy she's damaged with her channel. Blake had said that her own son had liked Emily because she'd been honest, that she'd made a difference with him. She hadn't meant to _hurt_ anyone. She hadn't meant to hurt a little boy who had been relying on her for comfort.

If she isn't shot by what sounds like a very overprotective mom, maybe she can do some good today.

[](https://imgbb.com/) [](https://imgbb.com/)

* * *

* * *

Today has been better. Ethan had awakened in her bed with a sleepy smile on his face like old times and he'd let her hug him and walk him to tutoring. “I know you're still angry with me,” she had said when they'd arrived, bending to look him in the eye. “I know it's hard to let go of that anger and I want to... I want you to let go of it when you're ready. Not because I ask you to.” Ethan watches her, very solemnly, and then nods with reluctance as his tutor arrives.

He's in a better mood in the afternoon when he returns home. “Something cool happened this morning,” he says when they're preparing for dinner, but refuses to elaborate on it. “You'll be mad.”

“Ethan,” Alex says, passing him the silverware to set out at the table. “There is very little you could do today that would make me mad.”

Ethan flushes, a smile stealing onto his face, and Alex kisses the top of his head and gives him a tight halfway hug. At last, things are beginning to look up.

They eat peacefully, the tension between them less stretched, less stiff. Ethan offers small details about his day and Alex is giddy with it, with a hurdle overcome and a first crack of light in the grey that has surrounded them for months. She offers a detail of her own day: _I got some writing done!_ and indulges in Ethan's beaming grin for a moment before they're rudely interrupted by the doorbell.

“Who's _that_?” Ethan asks, frowning. No one comes to their door here. They've lived in solitude since they'd arrived, greeted by neighbours once or twice before Alex had been standoffish enough that they'd stopped pushing.

Alex rises. “Let's see,” she says. “Maybe our mail wound up next door again.” She pulls open the door.

Emily Prentiss smiles sheepishly at her. “Hi,” she says with an adorable almost-guilty shrug.

[](https://imgbb.com/)  


Emily Prentiss is standing in her doorway, shifting from foot to foot uncertainly as Alex stares. For a moment, Alex is certain that Emily has somehow tracked her down – that this is a twisted attempt to...she doesn't know what...

They've had an odd relationship lately, the kind where it almost feels, at times, like they might be friends. Alex doesn't _do_ friends, doesn't meet people who don't dislike her at once, and she certainly doesn't expect it from the woman who had made it her business to tear Alex's life's work apart.

But Emily has been different lately. They still fight, still tear each other to shreds on Twitter, but the messages have gotten increasingly more personal, the discussions quiet and without the veneer of dislike. Alex enjoys it almost as much as she does their fights.

Then Ethan says, “Holy _crap_ ,” from behind her in pure awe. Then, “You came!” with more energy than he's said anything in months. He barrels past Alex to Emily, wrapping her into a vice-like embrace.

Emily kneels in his embrace, hugging him back tightly before Alex says, “ _What_ is going on?” They both look up at her with equally shamefaced expressions.

“I told...”

“He seemed...”

“It was just...”

“I wanted to...”

They're stumbling over each other to explain and Alex is horrified at the surge of fondness she feels towards Emily Prentiss, longtime mortal enemy at this reaction. Ethan and Emily exchange a worried glance, already thick as thieves, and Alex clears her throat and says, “Ethan is this the 'cool thing' that happened this morning?” Ethan bobs his head, puppy face firmly in place.

“I was just going to send some merch,” Emily says, apologetic. “I just had _so much_ and I wanted to... It seemed like Ethan was going through a rough patch, you know? And I saw his tweets and I wanted to do something. When I realized you were so close...”

“We're four hours away from New York,” Alex says, unimpressed. Emily's eyebrows shoot up and _maybe_ Alex has said too much and known too much about Emily. Alex clears her throat. “This is highly inappropriate.”

Emily grimaces. “I know, I know. I just...I wanted to help,” she says weakly, offering Ethan another nervous smile and Alex blinks at her and wonders if she had taken the last DM to heart.

It's disconcerting, standing opposite Emily without Emily knowing who she is, but Emily has proven today to be perfectly willing to invade anyone's privacy and is therefore not trustworthy. “You've been on the road for awhile,” Alex says finally, Ethan's bright eyes telling her she's made the right choice. “Why don't you come inside?”

* * *

So, now they have a sort-of-not-quite stranger with boundary issues in their house, visiting her ten year old son. Emily sits nervously in the study, an enormous bag of paraphernalia at her feet, and Ethan sits beside Alex on the opposite couch. “I saw you were having a rough time with...with the medical stuff and with _Criminal Minds_ and I thought...” Emily swallows, glancing at Alex again. Alex suspects that she'd probably feel more at home if there weren't another adult in the room. “I don't know. I almost died once from an infection.”

Ethan's brows furrow. “You never talked about that.”

“It wasn't funny,” Emily says wryly, eyes darting towards Alex again. “I talk about funny stuff. I had a... _procedure_ done when I was fifteen – it wasn't exactly the most hygienic or legal and I got a really bad infection. I had to spend several weeks in the hospital and my mom was too busy to visit.” She shrugs. “It's whatever. I just...” She crouches in her seat, eye level with Ethan. “It's pretty cool that someone cares enough to be by your side, you know? I don't know if that helps, I just wanted to say it.”

Ethan considers her thoughtfully. Alex keeps a hand on his shoulder, squeezing tightly. Ethan says, “Yeah, maybe.”

Emily rocks back in her seat, exhaling as though she'd done what she'd come for, as though she'd driven four hours to tell a ten year old boy that someone cared about him. Alex feels a twinge in her chest at the thought of it. “Okay. Cool.”

Ethan says abruptly, “Why don't you like _Criminal Minds_?” His arms are crossed and Alex knows that there would be a book held within them if he'd had his handy. There are a dozen on the shelf behind him, but Alex doesn't dare turn around to look at them, lest Emily catch on to exactly who they are.

Emily bites her lip, looking to Alex, and she falters at the look in Alex's eyes. Alex doesn't know what she's seen there – maybe just an equal look of determination to understand what it is that Emily hates about the books they've created together. “It's... I don't _hate_ it,” she says finally. “Everyone has different tastes. I just...” Ethan's face is crumpling and Emily freezes.

Alex says, afraid at once that Emily will stammer out a secret love for a series she very publicly and loudly despises, “Tell him the truth. He doesn't like lies.” Emily's eyes shoot to her at that, look at her with a sudden expression that Alex can't name. Alex keeps her face grim and Emily squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head.

“It's not what you think. The main character, she's...” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “She's a lot like me, you know? Minus the secret love affair with a terrorist or whatever. We have similar pasts and I guess I...I don't know, I imprinted onto her.” Alex's heart pounds. Emily makes a face. “Don't get me wrong, the writing is still bland and the characters inconsistent.” Alex's lips tighten. “But I got really attached to the main character in the first book.”

Ethan leans forward. “She's great!” he says eagerly, warming to Emily again. “And she has that epic love story...”

Emily's face twists. “Yeah, that,” she says scowling. “All of it, really. You can tell that at some point, A.E. Blake stopped writing for her characters and started writing for her readers or her editor or _someone_. Whatever they wanted, they got. Every now and then, there are bits that feel like she might care about them, but then they're gone as soon as the next book starts. And it's...I don't know. It hurts, reading something like that when you're in so deep.” She takes a deep breath, her eyes on Ethan, and her eyes flicker over and away from Alex's stricken look. “I guess that isn't really an excuse for how I've been trashing the series, but...”

“It's okay,” Ethan says and he's looking at Emily with new compassion, wise beyond his years when it comes to these matters. “You're like...in the character fandom. People always get weird when they're in fandoms.”

Emily laughs hard, a little wetly. “That's definitely true,” she agrees and they smile at each other, a little timidly, before Emily straightens. “I'd better get going,” she says. “It's been a whole day since I last fought with A.E. Blake, she's probably missing me.” She gives Ethan a wink when he laughs, oblivious as to why he's laughing.

“I don't think so,” Ethan says thoughtfully, darting a sly glance at Alex.

Emily blinks at him, brow furrowing, then laughs, though it sounds a little odd. “Yeah, you're right. She's probably happy for the break.” She rises. “Thank you for your hospitality,” she says graciously to Ethan, then turns to Alex who still hasn't moved. “And not calling the cops. It was...it was great to meet you both.” She looks up at Alex, that same unreadable expression on her face, and she opens her mouth as though to say something more before closing it again. Alex can't speak.

Ethan cuts in carefully, “Thanks, Emily. Your videos are...your videos make me really happy.” He says it shyly and Emily looks at him as though he's handed over the entire world to her.

He walks her from the room, out into the foyer, and Alex is gripped with a surge of urgency, of the knowledge that she has to do _something_ or this is _it..._

She's racing past Ethan at the door, down the path to where Emily's parked her car in front of the house and she stops at the sidewalk and blurts out, “That's _it_!? That's your issue with the books?”

Emily, standing at her car, looks bewildered and taken aback at it. “I...what?”

“You don't like the main character's treatment?” Alex sputters, outraged. “You take issue with every single little nitpick you can! You critique every character! And you're going to claim it boils down to... _caring too much_?”

Emily is still staring at her. “I mean, yeah, a lot of the books' charm is in how terrible every cliche is and how they still manage to pack an emotional punch. I'd probably forgive a lot more of it if not for the main character because she deserves a much better story than a _terrorist_...”

“So...what? You'd like the books better if not for some silly crowd-pleasing love stories?” Alex demands, incredulous.

“Yes!” Emily says, thumping the side of the car. “Yes, I would, because that's where the story is _broken_. Don't you see it? All that garbage matters because it speaks to us...and the books are trying to speak to everyone and I _get_ that! I do! But they try so hard that they don't speak to anyone anymore. They lost their soul.”

Alex tries to scoff, but it comes out strangled in the face of Emily's sincerity and she can feel herself close to tears. “The readers seem content with how it's gone,” she says, swallowing hard. Her eyes are glassy in the light reflecting off of them from the streetlamps, her heart in her throat, and she shakes her head again and feels the tears slipping down her cheeks. “They wouldn't... They wouldn't take well to whatever nonsense _soul_ the writer put into it. That isn't what they're looking for.”

Emily watches her for a long moment and she murmurs, “They might surprise you.”

“Me?” Alex echoes and she doesn't know when she's shown her hand, but she's certain that she has, from the stillness of Emily's face, from the way she's being watched. “I'm not...”

“You didn't give me your name,” Emily says and she takes a daring step forward, reaches out to touch Alex's cheek gently with the tips of her fingers. “You know everything about me and I don't even know your name.”

“Alex. Alex Miller,” she says numbly. It's impossible to dismiss Emily, to reject her quiet enquiries, the questions to which she already seems to know the answer.

“Let me guess...” Emily murmurs. “With a middle name starting with E?” And now her fingers have become her hand, have become a caress across Alex's cheek. “With a son who loves my videos and _Criminal Minds_.”

“Emily,” Alex says, her voice strained.

Emily says, eyes bright, lips curled into a wry smile, “You know, I really have terrible game. But somehow, I think I might have known this one from the start. I know you.” Her hand runs along Alex's cheekbone, to her jaw, then up to brush her tears away. “Tell me, Alex Miller,” she breathes and she's standing so close that it's barely an exhale. “What do you do for a living?

Her lips are close, her eyes wide open and fixed on Alex's. Alex is helpless within her grasp. “I'm a writer,” she murmurs and Emily closes the distance between them at last.

[](https://imgbb.com/)


End file.
